The title "What the Hell God?" is based on an entry found on the website TV tropes called "What the Hell Hero?" It describes any event in a book, film or other medium in which the hero is called out on their actions wherein the hero breaks their own moral compass and therefore is criticized for it. I could go on for pages, and indeed have gone on for pages in my blog (see below for the link)about how God appears not to follow his moral compass especially in the Old Testament. Here however, I thought I would stick with the aspect of Christianity that has bothered me the most, Hell.

Ironically, I first started having difficulty accepting Hell when I started reading Christian literature, including books by apologists and a few wacky ones on the end times most of which paint a picture of a God who is less than loving. Hell does the same thing, after you peel away Christianity's shiny exterior wherein evangelists advertise the idea of a benevolent God you reveal something far less loving. I discovered as much when I came across one of the many stories Christians use in evangelism. It is the audio book 'Kingdom of Affabel' by John Bevere. The main characters in it are a group of friends named after certain attributes that sounds a bit corny, such as a guy named Independence and a woman named Charity. At the story’s climax this group of 5 friends are whisked to a kingdom that alludes to heaven where they are judged by the king, King Julian, as either worthy of entering the kingdom or being banished. Of these 5 friends only 2 make it into heaven the rest go to a realm of banishment that is obviously meant to allude to Hell. One is unfairly banished due to the actions of another character but that was not the only issue I noticed with the story. One striking moment in this audio drama is when the girl named Charity asks the character who is an allusion to the Holy Spirit, a wise old sage named Sageous, if her friends made it into heaven as she has not seen them nor learned of their fate yet. When Charity asks about the ones who did not make it Sageous deliberately avoids answering the question and it is little wonder why. Had he answered it honestly instead of brushing the inquiry to the side, the entire mood of the audio book would have been changed dramatically especially if Charity had become distressed or broken down (which would have been more realistic) at the news her friends were condemned and the entire purpose of the audio book, to convert people, would have been ruined. That’s because there are problems with Hell that, although Christian’s may not admit it, they are uncomfortably aware of. Hell, whether it was originally part of Christian belief or not, has unfortunately become a cornerstone for Christianity as it provides a need for salvation in order to avoid it. Without Hell, as far as Christian’s are concerned there is nothing that we need to be saved from.

As the step-son of a pastor I was brought up constantly being reminded of the dangers of Hell and that I must honor my parents or God would say he did not know me and condemn me to eternal torture. As one could expect to happen when a child is taught this I developed an enormous fear that simple acts of disobedience would cause the same God who apparently claimed to love me to turn on me in an instant and condemn me to an eternity of suffering that fiery pit called Hell. Now I find the idea of teaching a child that, to be totally abhorrent. Not only that, what of children born to non-Christian parents, say someone in India who is more likely to be Hindu, or someone born in the Middle-East who is more likely to be Muslim. They will grow up believing their religion is the correct one because that is what they are taught to believe. So does that mean they will go to Hell because they were born into a society that isn't Christian, whose values they have come to reflect? There are many non-Christians who follow what the Apostle Paul calls the 'fruits of the spirit'. Do they go to Hell while someone who only converts on their deathbed after adhering to none of these fruits goes to heaven? How is that just? How is having hell to pay (pun intended) for not believing in Jesus, through no fault of your own, just?

After thinking the above through I also realized that Hell never appears in the Hebrew Bible and nor do the Jews believe in it. It first appears in the King James Version of the Old Testament wherein it has been used in place of the words netherworld, the place of the dead, or Sheol meaning the grave. I learned this after comparing the KJV with a copy of the Hebrew Bible. Neither the word Sheol or Netherland is used to refer to the fiery pit of torment that is the Hell of the New Testament. Despite this, some Christians say the Jewish idea of netherworld or oblivion where your soul ceases to exist is the same thing despite neither the New Testament nor Jews agreeing with this. Although Judaism has had varying ideas on what happens to sinners after they die, at worst in Judaism the most sinful of souls were believed to be destroyed in a fire often compared to the one that burned outside Jerusalem. This was quite far from an eternal punishment and the condemned simply ceased to exist. There is much conflicting opinion among Christians as to whether or not Jews believe in hell with some Christian’s responses implying, though rarely said directly, that the Jews have been reading their sacred texts incorrectly for the last millennia or two. This is countered by some who suggest that God has blinded the Jews from seeing the truth. If he wants them to believe in Christ, why would he do that? It makes no sense that he would not only decide that the Jews were not his chosen people anymore as Paul implies but that he would deliberately blind them so that they would not realize this, and according to doctrine, would not be saved because they did not believe in Christ. Perhaps in Galatians when Paul mentions that all have heard of Christ and therefore have no excuse in not believing in him.

The very idea that all non-believers including friends and kin (in many instances) of believers have an eternity of torture in a fiery pit waiting them does not make God sound benevolent. I would not wish eternal damnation in Hell on my worst enemy regardless of what they had done. Nor do I think eternal torture is befitting for a finite crime. God, in theory at least, has all creation, everything, under his complete control including the so-called ‘curse’ of sin. If he is powerless to act against the curse, then he is not omnipotent. Surely, there were many other ways to deal with this ‘curse’ if that is what it is. Hell instills such fear in people, that there are undoubtedly many who call themselves Christian not because they follow Christ out of loyalty but out of fear of what awaits them if they are not subservient to God. It has been proven throughout history that fear is an extremely powerful and highly insidious means of controlling people, not befitting of a benevolent God. This fear also conflicts with the doctrine of ‘free will'. If such a thing existed a person’s eternal fate would not hinge upon whether or not they chose to worship God and acknowledge Jesus as their lord and savior (as most pastors would put it).

After thinking through all the above, I decided to pose the following answer to Christians: If God allowed you to swap your place in heaven with a loved one’s place in hell, would you do it? Thereby forfeiting your salvation and ensuring theirs. Responses to this question that I posted in several online forums, have been varied and at times distasteful. The distasteful answers made me glad I was not a member of the answerer’s family. So far, I am yet to receive a genuine "yes I would" as an answer. Based on previous responses to this I am quite sure that Christians are not comfortable with the idea of hell. Whether mild and sub-conscious or not, it still commands fear or discomfort in all that believe in it. Nobody likes the idea and it would be a worry if they did. Another question which seems to get quite varied responses from Christians is: does God still love the people that he sends to hell? Unfortunately many times the answer I have received has been no because God only loves those who have chosen to love him and his son. This does not support the idea that God’s love is unconditional because only loving someone if they love you in return is by no means unconditional love. Also, of the people I have heard of (or met) who do not get along with their children through little fault of their own. Very few (I would hope not any), have desired to see their child severely punished or tortured for not loving them. To many parents, and hopefully most if not all, severely punishing their estranged child through torture, would be the last thing on their mind.

Another thing that bothered me was the belief of early Catholicism that infants that were not baptised and died go to Hell (and ome people still believe that) This makes God sound like a tyrant who makes it a crime to simply be born. Some Christians continue to believe this, but they do not make it well-known as the idea is considered barbaric even among believers. For parents who believed this, it caused considerable grief especially for those who had to endure the loss of a child due to a miscarriage or the child being stillborn. Now a common belief is they go to heaven, this would make these infants far luckier than anyone else as they never have to know the fear of hell nor the ‘curse’ of sin. This also makes the stance many Christian’s have against abortion a little odd since the soul is saved from any risk of being damned which I will not expand on this further due to the immense controversy surrounding the issue.

I often wondered as my deconversion came to its final stages how much pressure Christians who spread God’s word realize they are being put under. If they do or say the wrong thing to someone who turns them off becoming a believer, even if it were by accident, they are potentially jeopardizing that person’s soul. For a pastor, or any evangelist, that is an enormous responsibility. The very idea that by doing the wrong thing you could have some responsibility for someone choosing not to follow Christ and then ending up in Hell was not a pleasant one and it was something that troubled me well before I decided to leave Christianity. I kept thinking that I could never be an evangelist if I might bear some responsibility in someone ending up in Hell. The idea of accidentally doing this was terrifying and is one aspect of Christianity that I particularly do not miss. Sure, some say that God will guide you and you will not make a mistake, but that does not explain why some Christians make slips while evangelising, and some of those slips were not small.

Hell never appears in the Hebrew Bible and nor do the Jews believe in it. It first appears in the King James Version of the Old Testament wherein it has been used in place of the words netherworld, the place of the dead, or Sheol meaning the grave. It is often said by Christians that Hell was not meant for humans, according to one Bible verse, and was meant for the angels who rebelled. This does not explain why humans go there given God had the foreknowledge of humanity sinning (presumably from the Bible) and total foreknowledge of who would and who would not go to Hell before they were even born (an unpleasant thought to be sure). This would make more sense if God was not omniscient and was not in control of any of the circumstances that would lead to the fall of man and was not expecting Satan to spite him after exiling him to Earth (which does not happen in the Old Testament as seen in the Book of Job where Satan is on speaking terms with God in heaven). A few things would make more sense in the Bible if God was not omniscient and man’s rebellion took him by surprise, and his plans did not always go the way he had intended them to go. However, this would in no way be considered to be in line with any current theological interpretations of the Bible. Although Christian denominations may have distinct differences at times, I am quite sure they agree that God is omniscient. While I do not claim to understand how omniscience would work I do think being omniscient and knowing everything that will and will not occur seems to eliminate any point to existing. The state of being omniscient makes it also very odd that God gets angry, how does one get angry at an event they always knew was going to occur and that is completely within their control? The way Paul describes the day of God’s wrath seems to be like it is an impending doom, that is inevitable and not within God’s control, and which he also planned, which makes no sense whatsoever.

Asking too many of the above questions about whether or not Hell was befitting of a benevolent deity was one of the nails on the coffin of my faith, if not the main one. Even after asking all this, the other thing that got my attention is that the things which can be considered sinful and land you an eternity of pain in a fiery pit of torment range vary considerably between denominations. Actions such as murder and the seven deadly sins are more universally agreed on. However other things that are worthy of eternal punishment seem very extreme. Some Christians think that prioritizing an ill family member, friend or just prioritizing other relationships in general above God is enough to make God condemn you to to Hell for an eternity, sounds like somebody got jealous (God is apparently a jealous God, from Exodus 20:4-5). Most people would find it a bit trying if they had to contend with this level of jealousy from a partner. Likely this apparent ‘sin’ of not prioritizing loving God over other people enough is inspired by one of the more weirder lines apparently spoken by Jesus in the gospels:

“If any man come to Me and hate not his father and mother, and wife and children, and brethren and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple“
- Luke 14:26

In conclusion, of the main reasons I deconverted Hell was probably one of the biggest factors. That and asking lots of questions as well as reading too much Christian literature. I can't say that I'm totally free from my fear of Hell, only a life threatening experience would determine that but I'm free of the hold it had on my life. Looking back I can see Hell for what it is. An immoral and insidious control mechanism that is designed to keep believers believing.

The pub also attracts a lot of undergrad and grad students from a nearby, large, state university. They come to have a drink, enjoy live music and play pool. It's the nearest thing to "church" that I have going on in my life these days.

I go to Kary's pub several times a week and sometimes get into some very interesting and intelligent conversations with total strangers while sipping his many fine brews and wines.

Recently I was hanging out there when two attractive young women came in to order a drink. They were dressed provocatively and, as "Providence" would have it, sat down next to me at the bar.

Well, being an ex-fundamentalist Christian minister, I quickly judged them - based on their outward looks - as being of a heathenish sort: they were displaying ample amounts of flesh, numerous tattoos and clothed in black leather and lace. Oh, La, La! I felt "the gods" were finally showing favor to this old, burned-out, ex-fundy preacher who now happens to be an atheist. ;>)

One was puffing away on one of those new-fangled E-cigarettes. I asked her how it was working for her? She felt it was going great: she had not smoked any regular tobacco for weeks. I told her I was ex-smoker. We had a delightful conversation about the joys of becoming tobacco-free.

They were both very friendly, vivacious, funny and out to party for the night. They were celebrating the fact that E-Cigarette girl had just graduated from college that morning with her BA degree in Anthropology. She wasn't sure what she was going to do with the it but felt it had been a very transformative educational experience for her on many levels. Primarily, she felt it had helped her to shed many of the ideas she had been taught growing up in her small, backwater, Florida town.

The two women said they have known each other since the 6th grade. They had attended the same church and were high school graduates of their church's "home-school" program.

They were surprised I knew about speaking in tongues. I explained I had a pentecostal church back-ground too and had once been an ordained minister.

The E-Cig woman explained that their departure from their pentecostal faith started when - after graduating from their home-school "high school" - they both found work as 9-1-1 dispatchers for their county EMS services.

Their new jobs shocked them as they got to see life in its most raw form. The faith they had been taught since childhood was no longer making sense as they responded to tragedy after tragedy. The "God" who was suppose to be there never showed up to stop meaningless deaths and tragedies from happening. Their work as dispatchers started to erode the easy bumper-sticker theologies they had absorbed from church and school. They started asking hard questions and looking for answers.

E-Cig said:

After high school, I left home and discovered that what I had been taught about how the world works just was not reality. My parents can't understand where I'm coming from. They think I've backslidden and I am in the clutches of The Devil."My parents and siblings are still involved with all that church stuff. After high school, I left home and discovered that what I had been taught about how the world works just was not reality. My family still attends the same church, listens to the same preaching programs and television shows. They have never questioned anything they have ever been taught. They've lived a very sheltered life. They've never been exposed to anything that would cause them to question what they believe."

She lamented that she could not share what she had come to learn from her university studies with her parents and siblings:

"When I go home I avoid anything about religion or politics because it just causes an argument. All they know about the world comes from their preachers and what they see on Fox News. My parents can't understand where I'm coming from. They think I've backslidden and I am in the clutches of The Devil."

E-Cig finally came to realize that their main difference between herself and the rest of her family was this:

"The problem is their world is very simple and so they believe the solutions are simple. They don't understand that life is not simple but very complex. They think that if you just chant a bible verse about a problem then that solves it. It's maddening to try to have a discussion with them about anything that's happening because they automatically have the right answer without even studying the problem."

I asked how she would now identify herself?

"I consider myself to be an Agnostic-Pagan." Her friend also agreed.

I explained a little of my de-conversion story and how I had formerly served as a "full-gospel" preacher and Army chaplain and that it took me three years of study at a liberal seminary to enable me start thinking my way out of the fog of a lifetime of religious indoctrination. I congratulated them for being able to question things and to escape at such a young age.

E-Cig girl added:

"I think what we went through as kids in our church - and by being homeschooled - was a total mind fu*k. It took us a long time to sort things out." She is still angry about being so misinformed about so many things, such as science, history, the bible, etc., by her church pastors and teachers.

They invited me to shot pool with them. We all continued to drink and were having a great time and then it happened: their dates for the evening showed up!

Game over.

They introduced me to their dates. They effusively told their dates what a great time they had been having with me. They bid me farewell and left.

I was happy I got to have this encounter. It warmed my old skeptic's heart to hear their story of how they escaped from the mental prison of Christian fundamentalism and were doing something constructive with their lives.

Oh well. The night at Kary's pub was still young. I returned to his bar counter, got back on a stool and ordered another beer and waited for "providence" to send someone else my way.

It‘s not unusual to ﬁnd individuals testifying to their spiritual experiences, while others describe themselves as “spiritual” persons. We can be sure, with the new pentecostal movements in the Christian religion alone, that churches are loaded with those sharing personal testimonies of spiritual experiences. Have you had your “spiritual” experience yet, and aren't you tempted to join this fad - movement? Wouldn't you want to experience just one of those moments that in current parlance, “changed your life forever”? Well, drugs have brought many to experience the “spiritual,” the “transcendental,” and opened the doors of sensory perception to a hyper-reality. (Henry James, in his book, “The Varieties of Religious Experience,” cites alcoholic beverages as also causing them.) we hear of ordinary people describing some experiences as “surreal.” You don't need admittance to an American Indian peyote-included, religious ceremony, or money to pay for a sweat lodge gathering.

This recipe for “spiritual experiences” does not involve drugs. It is something anyone can do who can stand it. So many of those spiritual experiences, commonly described by the “spiritual” people in our culture, are like bland watered-down beverages, compared to the “real thing.” Here is the recipe, the Tradition, the Access, of prophets, John the Baptist, Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha, St. Anthony of the Desert, isolated monks, and Peter the Hermit, whose sermons inspired the crusaders to die for the faith:

Go off alone. Cut yourself off from all human contact. The typical minimum amount of time for this isolation for the experiences to take hold is forty days and nights. The desert is the ideal, and the usual environment.

It is absolutely essential that you enforce sleep deprivation.

Severely deprive yourself of food, especially nutritional foods.

Physical punishment is a must. This may include scarring yourself and not bathing, banishing evil thoughts about physical pleasures, most especially, sexual thoughts, and any other “urges” ﬁghting with your soul for control of your body are to be warred against for the puriﬁcation of your soul.

You must pray continually throughout to spiritual beings for wisdom, understanding, enlightenment and assurance, all the while opening yourself to receive their messages, in all these practices.

If you persist, you will receive “spiritual understanding” surpassing all human understanding. Perhaps you may hear the very Voice of God speaking to you. Nevertheless, profound experiences will come to you, convictions of truth and personal contact with the Divine. There are many who can attest to these things. Some are well known as charismatic founders of faiths, others merely as charismatic speakers. All will attest to their profound experiences and utter convictions of Truth derived from personal "spiritual” experiences triumphing over everyday ones.

Now maybe you are thinking, “Why, the Recipe sounds like the tortures practiced at Gitmo, in the Inquisition, etc., without the ‘spiritual’ quest.” You are right. In fact, though the ends may be different, the means to achieve the ends are the same. The difference lies between other-inflicted and self-inﬂicted tortures. (It is not known how many have become completely or partially insane as a result of them.) And believe it or not, even those “personal spiritually-intense-life-altering -experiences” we commonly hear about (thank you, Francis Collins and Barbara Ehrenreich) can be attributed to natural extreme stress on the body/mind!

So, if you want to convince yourself that you're having a spiritual experience, just mess with your body.

Lately, I’ve been reflecting on the key stories and experiences from my childhood that had shaped and solidified my belief in God/Jesus for several decades, until my recent deconversion. One event in particular had a profound impact on my spiritual development, and convinced me that Christianity was real. As I look at the story with fresh eyes and without my faith goggles, however, I can clearly see that my experiences were largely the product of manipulation and brainwashing, but at the time, I was sure they were supernatural. This is the story of going to summer Bible Camp and getting “Baptized in the Holy Spirit.”

Every summer I went to Bible Camp in Bellevue Idaho, situated just minutes from the famous Sun Valley ski resort and Ketchum, the resting place of Ernest Hemingway. The documentary, JESUS CAMP, paints a vivid portrait of what my experiences were like. We started our day with devotions in our cabin led by our camp counselor, followed by breakfast and then immediately to chapel, where we sang kid-friendly action songs, like “Hallelu-Hallellu-Hallelu-Hallelu-ja, Praise Ye the Lord.” The boys would stand and shout at the top of their lungs, the “Hallelu’s” and then the girls, not wanting to be outdone, would jump up and scream their part, “Praise Ye the Lord.” We also learned Bible verses and did crafts, patterned after Vacation Bible School. Following lunch we played outdoor games, enjoyed free time, and took a day trip to the Crystal Ice caves, swimming pool, or ice-skating rink nearby.

In the evenings we dressed up and headed to the big tent revival, where the children’s pastor pulled out all of the stops and offered an emotional appeal that one simply couldn’t refuse. Each night for a week, there was music, skits, and powerful object lessons, to drive home the message being conveyed. Some pastors used puppets. Others used magic tricks. One lady, as I recall had a dog who could howl specific notes when she heard them being played on the piano. “Muffy is singing a ‘B’ to remind you to Bee-lieve on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.” Regardless the medium, the message was always the same. You are a sinner, doomed to Hell. Jesus is the solution and you need to invite him into your heart NOW. If you wait, you might die and burn in hell F -O -R -E -V -E -R ..ever..ever..ever.. (Reverb)

It was in such a meeting, that I was convinced that Jesus was calling me to walk down the aisle to the altar. This wasn’t just a call to salvation, but an invitation to be filled with the Holy Ghost. I had prayed the sinners prayer hundreds of times since the “cupcake” incident (a story I tell in an earlier vignette). In fact I went forward nearly every Sunday at church to ask forgiveness, lest I died unexpectedly with un-repented sin in my heart. Knowing I could lose my salvation at any moment, forced me to remain militantly vigilant. I had also prayed to be filled with the Holy Spirit numerous times, but to no avail. My spiritual language never came. I couldn’t understand why God would keep this gift from me, when he himself was reported saying, “Ask and you will receive.” But this time was different. The pastor said, “If your heart is beating heavily, that is the Holy Spirit knocking on your door. He’s inviting you to come forward and be saved and baptized with the Spirit. My heart was pounding out of my chest. He must be talking to me! In almost a trance-like state I made my way to the altar and was met by a counselor who directed me to kneel.

We drank the Kool-aide without a clue that we were being manipulated. As I began to sob loudly, (that seemed to be the prerequisite for receiving the Holy Spirit) the counselor praying for me offered some syllables for me to try. Say, “Shan- da- la-ma- sha-ku-rah.” I repeated. She was pleased. She then told me just to relax and let the “spirit” do the talking. She instructed me to say whatever sounds my tongue wanted to form and I did. My teeth started to chatter as if standing in the middle of a snowstorm, waiting for the school bus. “Good! Just let it go,” the counselor encouraged. The teeth chatters turned into, “lalalalalalala” “That’s right, sweetie. Make love to Jesus,” she said over and over, “Ewwwww!” I thought to myself, blushing in preadolescent embarrassment. I couldn’t even say the word sex, without turning several shades of red, so the imagery of becoming “intimate” with Jesus was simply unthinkable. This time my la-la-la-la's reached a crescendo, not from the spirit’s anointing, but rather to drown out the counselor’s prompts. The la-la-la-la’s morphed into tatatatatatatatatatata, like a machine gun and then eventually into supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.” I’m kidding. But whatever nonsense syllables I uttered, my coach exclaimed, “Good! You’re doing it! That’s the Holy Spirit!” I had worked myself into such an emotional tizzy, I couldn’t tell if I was just making up the sounds or if God really was taking control of my tongue. But she assured me I had indeed received my heavenly language, so I believed it. I was convinced that I had finally, been “touched” by God. This was the evidence I needed to trust that he loved me, heard my prayers and knew me personally. I was elated. The Holy Ghost was going to keep me from sinning so that I wouldn’t go to Hell. What a relief! I was a new creation. The old me had died and the new me had just been born. From that moment on, I considered myself a real Christian, born-again and spirit filled, and I vowed to live the rest of my life for Jesus.

Looking back I can see how this parlor trick was played. Here we were, a bunch of kids, away from our parents, being indoctrinated throughout the day, as we were homesick, tired and emotionally vulnerable. Then using mood music, like the background sound effects in a movie, the pastor became a salesman, delivering his most compelling pitch, laced with fear, guilt, shame and intense urgency. We must get right with God or we could die that very night and go to hell forever. What a perfect concoction for brainwashing at its finest. We drank the Kool-aide without a clue that we were being manipulated.

I wonder how many of my ex-Christian.net friends have had similar experiences. I would love to hear them!

From my very earliest memories, I had a very strong sense of a Something there watching out for me and caring about my well-being. I called it God. This was true even though I was raised by Milquetoast Methodist parents who had me baptized and then took me to church a couple of times a year, being essentially agnostics.

One day during Sunday School (I was 5), I posed my first theological question when the teacher told us to pray for good weather for an upcoming church picnic. “What it there is a farmer who is praying for rain for his crops on the same day?” I asked. The teacher thought my question was cute.

In middle school, our neighborhood had a lot of (reform) Jewish families. My best friend Bekka came from a large family that had emigrated from Israel a few years before. She and I were inseparable, and her father was a Cantor, so I spent many nights at the Synagogue and many other nights at Shabbats, mesmerized by the prayers over the candles: Barukh atah Adonai, Eloheinu, melekh ha’olam…Amein.

I even learned to write a little Hebrew. I fell in love with Judaism – what little I could comprehend of it – and was jealous of Bekka and her family who had such a strong cultural and spiritual connection to God.

This all came to a screeching halt when an evangelical friend of mine informed me that Bekka and her family was secret Satanists because they were “Christ-killers.” I pointed out how nice they all were, and he said, “It doesn’t matter whether someone is nice. God doesn’t care about that. He only cares if you have accepted Jesus as your savior. Otherwise you go to into eternal hellfire.”

This bothered me terribly, especially since it made God worse than Hitler, whose victims at least died in the end. But I still believed in God and wanted to be on his good side. I was scared. Even after my parents pronounced him an “idiot,” I let my friendship with Bekka fade away along with my dreams of becoming Jewish.

In high school I was confirmed in a local Lutheran church. I was still uncomfortable with “saved by faith,” as my school was very diverse and I knew kids of all sorts of religions. The church had a large youth group and a “Luther Teen House” next door with a jukebox, pool table and Coke machine. I got high, got drunk, and made out for the first time all in that house. Seems the Christian girls were no less bitchy and the Christian boys no less sexually aggressive than secular kids … but they had faith in Jesus, so it was all good.

Lydia, my roommate in college, was something I’d never encountered before – a young-earth, fundamentalist Christian. In pre-med (!!!) she was convinced that dinosaur bones had been “created by Satan to fool Christians.” She had no problem with the concept of little Indian, Chinese and African children going to hell. The same applied to Catholics and other Christians who didn’t interpret the Bible literally or had been baptized as infants.

At the same time, my closest friend Daniel (who, 30 years later, is still one of my closest friends) was one of the most compassionate people I’d ever known (and he was a lot happier than Lydia, who was clinically depressed most of the time). He was also an atheist – raised that way. Again I was reminded that God only cares what you believe, not in any good works you may do. This struck me as inherently unfair, given that Daniel did nice things without any expectation of reward or fear of damnation.

This God thing was making less and less sense, but I still “felt” him … and I really didn’t want to go to hell.

Lydia was a straight-A student, but lacked real-world experience and common sense, so she was easy to debate. But each debate left me more weary and confused. I DID believe in God, and I had no way to know – could she possibly be right? I attended my own church, a liberal Lutheran one, but more and more questions started popping up. Such as:

If Jesus were really God, how come he didn’t share some really helpful advice – like what germs are, how they spread and how to prevent disease?

Assuming he knew the future, why didn’t Jesus make it extremely clear that events like the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition and the Salem Witch Trials would be totally unacceptable?

How did Jesus’ suffering and death on the cross accomplish anything for us? If God needed that to forgive us, then he is less “forgiving” than we are, because WE are expected to forgive without demanding a sacrifice in return. Vengeance is not forgiveness.

If God is unchanging and “the same yesterday, today and tomorrow,” why does he no longer talk to us? Why aren’t we still making animal sacrifices? Why isn’t he still smiting people, or ordering people to be smote? (Literal number from the Bible, 2,821,364 – with estimates of 10 times that). And the very act of coming to earth as Jesus represented a new idea – doesn’t a new idea require a change?

Why did God bother to create millions and millions of people, before and after Christ, who he knew would be damned to eternal hellfire in the end?

If God could make miracles happen, and if we could give him credit for the small things (praise be to God I won Bingo!), why did he do nothing about the big things (providing rain to drought areas where people are dying for a drink of water?).

If God made hell because so many people are evil, why can’t good people merit heaven with or without faith in a particular doctrine? He took all the morality away from the issue. It easier to do good things than it is to believe something that might be alien to what you’ve been taught.

If being filled by the Holy Spirit made you into a new creation, why isn’t it plainly obvious that Christians are different (and better) than other people? It was the early 1980s and TV evangelist scandals were coming to light every day. And so often, Christians seemed to be on the wrong side of moral issues. I was a member of “Students Against Nuclear Weapons” and was informed by more than one fundamentalist that I was working against Christ because he NEEDED a nuclear holocaust in order to return. The then-popular bumper sticker, “CHRISTIANS AREN’T PERFECT, JUST FORGIVEN,” seemed like a taunt to me.

And still I “felt” him.

That summer, I got a job doing filing downtown. One afternoon I looked out the window and saw one of those Jesus Freak cars, with verses from Revelation all over and a loudspeaker blaring that everyone had to come to Jesus, now. Suddenly I had the worst panic attack I have ever had. The room was spinning and was pouring sweat. I went into the bathroom and threw up. For some strange reason, I felt like that warning was meant for me.

Everything in my life changed at that moment. Over the next few weeks I recited the Jesus Prayer a hundred times, but never felt any different so felt it didn’t “take.” I was frantic. I tried unsuccessfully to witness to my parents. I could not look into a room without wondering who was saved and who was not. I began reading every book I could on Christianity, trying to find the “right” denomination, but that just confused me more. I was overloaded with conflicting dogma.

This anxiety and angst became a phobia that lasted for years. I never told anyone what I was going through. Among my greatest regrets in life is distancing myself from my mother when she had cancer because she wasn’t “saved.”

I wanted very much to be married, and I knew I had to marry a Christian man; but had a quandary: I DIDN’T LIKE THE COMPANY OF CHRISTIANS. In fact, as a self-proclaimed socialist, I preferred the company of agnostics and atheists. This put me into a situation where I was afraid to get intimate with anyone. The isolation was unbearable.

Over the years I “tried on” Episcopalian, Presbyterian, and even Quakerism. Nothing “fit.” The liberal churches, I suspected of false theology. The conservative ones made me sick with their political rhetoric and their refusal to look at contradictions and absurdities in their Bible.

Finally, after years of prayers, God brought me an answer.

What we did to him was so sick, so unfathomable, that I will never, ever forgive myself. In my early 30s, I met my husband, Alex. He was an Eastern Orthodox priest, “on leave” after a divorce. I had never heard of Orthodox Christianity before, but I liked what I heard: A mystical or symbolic interpretation of scripture; no Substitutionary Atonement; no literal burning hell, and open to the possibility of people of other religions entering heaven. It seemed to be all the good stuff minus the bad stuff, and the fact that it was the “original church” in history gave it a lot of credibility.

Alex also seemed like the right kind of Christian for me. Raised in a communal atmosphere in Berkely, he was still a hippie with hair down to his waist, a love for film and rock n’ roll, and liberal political views. He was a recovering drug addict who credited God for his sobriety, and had made his way out of a shockingly violent childhood – but he had become a pastoral counselor. He was a gentle father to his 5-year-old son, and was more intelligent than anyone I had ever met. He was deeply involved in peace issues, and very inclusive as to who would go to heaven.

I recognized a gift from God when I saw one.

But I didn’t know enough about Orthodoxy to see the red flags. He’d been ordained in a non-canonical “independent” Orthodox church in Queens that mixed Kabballah and Theosophy in with its Orthodox theology. (I found out many years later that the Bishop who had founded it – and who Alex practically worshipped – had served time twice for embezzlement and once for mail fraud).

We were engaged and moved in together a month after we met. He resisted birth control on the grounds that “I trust God about things like that.” He also trusted God so much he didn’t wear a seatbelt, and was staunchly opposed to any sort of significant savings, calling a nest egg “greedy and materialistic” and reminding me of the sparrows. He was an artist and didn’t have a “real” job, but promised to get one before we were married. He finally did get a job in IT, and our two jobs helped us to maintain a roof over our heads.

Alex was a study in contradictions. He read the Bible every day, taking copious notes. Our apartment was covered with iconography and he self-published several books on Orthodoxy. He praised God constantly, never taking praise for himself but attributing all to God. To this day I have no doubt that he really DID believe; he wasn’t faking it. But once we returned from our wedding in Queens, more problems came up.

Now that he was married, he was reinstated to the priesthood. Suddenly I was a priest’s wife, something I hadn’t anticipated. About the same time he came down with a severe illness that kept him bedridden for two weeks, so he lost his job in IT. He was diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, but refused to try to get disability because he wanted to serve as a (volunteer) priest for a small congregation and he knew that would interfere with getting the benefit. We were back to my small salary, and I was getting scared.

His 5-year-old son was illegitimate, having been conceived during the process of his divorce. Just after our wedding, a 2-year-old illegitimate son popped up; we had to go to court to allow his stepfather to adopt him. I wept uncontrollably during the hearing; Alex seemed to feel nothing. I asked him, “How many more kids are out there?” He shrugged and said, “I don’t know. Probably several.”

He had already informed me that I was fourth on his priority list, after God, the Church, and his son. This was true. Once, when my stepson slammed the door and a large wooden icon fell and cracked me on the head, I swore, and he flew into a rage because I’d sworn in front of the icon. He kissed it – the icon, not my head.

We became the leaders of a congregation, but with a caveat – no one could know of his former divorce or his son’s illegitimacy. So began a life of lies where I had to subtly pretend that my stepson was my own (very difficult to do when the church women ask you about his birth or your child’s earliest years), and my stepson had to stay with the program and not mention his real mom or half-sister. He’s 22 now, and I cry as I write this. What we did to him was so sick, so unfathomable, that I will never, ever forgive myself.

I began to feel more and more isolated, especially since the two congregations we eventually led were immigrants, most of whom did not speak English. I didn’t have anyone to confess my lies to.

As it turned out, two of his exes had attempted or committed suicide. I never thought about the statistics of that – Alex explained they were both “crazy.” But as time went on, he displayed more and more of his temper. He would fly into unbelievable rages – often I didn’t know what he was upset about – and scream and swear at me. He was a very large man, and I would sit on the floor as he towered over me, yelled so the neighbors could hear (they told me!), hands in fists, veins poking out of his neck. Co-workers complained to my HR department about the times he dropped me off at work, screaming hysterically at me.

These weren’t “arguments” because I was afraid to reciprocate. Instead, I would go into another room and burn myself. I’d never self-harmed before, but I had nowhere to put my emotions.

He never actually “hit” me, although he did cause two situations which left me bruised. Anyway, the yelling was worse, because for days afterward, I was physically sore as if he had. But unlike most abusive men, he never once said “I’m sorry.” He may have asked God for forgiveness, but not me.

For some years, I believed I was happy – because I felt every incident was isolated and would never recur. Our family did, in fact, have wonderful times together, but it was like taking a walk though a lovely meadow and having to avoid the landmines. Later I became unhappy, but chose to bear my burden because I didn’t want to break up the church. He had threatened me several times with a "Biblical marriage" in which he would make all decisions and I would submit, but it was that way anyway.

Yet the idea of divorce was completely foreign to me. God had brought me this man and I was going to make it work somehow. When I was feeling down he sent me to a weekend retreat at a monastery nearby with a sweet and kind bishop we both loved. This bishop was later defrocked for sexual assault.

Things finally came to a head when my company declared bankruptcy and it looked like I would be laid off shortly. I began to hint that he might look into getting another part-time job (he was working for pay one day a week as a hospital chaplain). He exploded that he couldn’t do that and the church, and the church was his priority. He screamed at me to get a job at McDonald’s, when I was already working 50 to 60 hours a week. “YOU DON’T TRUST GOD,” he shrieked.

I began to get sicker and sicker, mentally and physically. Between jaw problems and anxiety, I lost almost 30 pounds and was constantly depressed and anxious. The doctors simply put me on more and more medication. But the more depressed I got, the more angry Alex got, calling me a “selfish bitch.” He would scream and swear at me the whole way to church, then get out of the car and become “The Gentle Priest.” It was as if he was two people. Church members often told me how fortunate I was to be married to such a Godly man.

Like the Ingrid Bergman character in “Gaslight,” my husband kept trying to convince me that I was crazy, and I came to believe it. He made me flush my meds down the toilet because I was “depending on medication instead of God,” throwing me into SSRI withdrawal. At one point he attempted to exorcise the demons out of me. One minute I was praising God, a moment later the fears came back again. “You TOOK the demons back,” he screamed. “You WANT to be sick.”

By that time I was in a semi-psychotic state. And one day I was greatly relieved and calmed to hear God’s voice say, “You can come home.” I had taken to sleeping on the floor in front of the altar, and when Alex came in I happily informed him. He flew into a rage. “What will that do to the CHURCH? You will go to HELL if you do this. But if it’s what you want, fine. What should I get you – a gun or a rope!?”

The next morning I made a serious attempt – not a gesture, not to get attention. I was 100% positive that I would die and life would be better for everyone. I wrote a suicide note to the church, telling them what a good man my husband was and why they should stay in his congregation. It was all my fault, I said. Blame me.

Somehow, I survived. One doctor said he had never had a patient survive what I had done. They all expected me to be happy that I was alive. I was not. I was supposed to stay in the ward for two weeks. Alex called two days after, demanding I come home, and telling me what to say to the doctors in order to get out. It worked.

The next three years were more of the same, except that now when we argued he would pull the suicide card. And his violent behavior kept escalating. Out of curiosity I wrote the city for his police records and discovered that right about the time he’d met me, he’d been arrested and gone to court for hitting his mother.

To be 100% fair, it was two Orthodox friends (from another church) and an Evangelical counselor who told me I HAD to leave. But I was still brainwashed with my own personal religion. I kept promising them things would get better. They HAD to. I was doing this for God.

One night in our 16th year, I came home late from work, as I was dealing with my most time-consuming project of the year. He was waiting for me. When I came in, he said, “So, I suppose you were out screwing someone else.” There was something new in his eyes, something I’d never seen before. The next morning I got up, went to work and never came home.

Ironically, I still have to support him financially after the divorce. And if the State has a problem with the checks, which it sometimes does, he’s very quick to email me and demand the money (what happened to the sparrows?). MY home has been foreclosed, I’ve lost half my savings, I’ve declared bankruptcy and I have no idea where my stepson is. My father died about the same time. I was diagnosed with PTSD from the abuse. I had lost everything. Everything. I felt like a fool. Still do.

Over the next six months or so, the “feeling” I had, which I had called God, faded and faded. I knew God was gone completely when my father died. I was holding his hand as he passed away, and I felt noting – no compulsion to pray, no concerns about whether he’d gone to heaven or hell, no feeling that his spirit was anywhere at all. The chaplain came by and asked if he could be of any assistance. I said no – unthinkable in the past.

I never, never dreamed I would stop believing in God. For most of my life, even while I wrestled with dogma, God was the one thing I believed to be true. “I believe God exists because I exist,” I would say. I prayed every night before bed and throughout the day as well.

But I can’t imagine the opportunities I missed, the hell I endured, in his name. If there is a god who loves me, he has a funny way of showing it. People will say “I never really believed,” but if I didn’t, why would I have gone through all of that? I defy anyone to go through what I’ve been through and not recognize that God is either evil or a myth.

We’re on our own, and I wish I had known that 30 years ago. I truly feel I wasted my entire life in God’s name.

Picture this: A group of abortion opponents stand outside a women’s clinic holding pictures of fetal remains. As they stand there, calling and offering pamphlets to people entering the clinic, a trickle of pro-choice activists also arrive. Instead of lining up on the opposite side of the sidewalk, they position themselves beside the first group in silence, holding posters of their own.

The signs have words—not their own words but words from texts that inspire the anti-choice movement. Some quotes are from modern church leaders or ancient patriarchs. Others are from the Bible itself. They read:

I fail to see what use woman can be to man, if one excludes the function of bearing children. –Saint Augustine

In sorrow thou shalt bring forth children and thy desire shall be to thy husband and he shall rule over thee. –Genesis 3:16

Women will be saved through childbearing. –1 Timothy 2:15

The word and works of God is quite clear, that women were made either to be wives or prostitutes. –Martin Luther

If a woman grows weary and at last dies from childbearing, it matters not. Let her only die from bearing; she is there to do it. –Martin Luther

If no proof of the bride’s virginity can be found, she shall be brought to the door of her father’s house and there the men of her town shall stone her to death. –Deuteronomy 22:20-21

When life begins with that horrible situation of rape, that is something that God intended to happen. –Senate candidate Richard Mourdock

Women will be saved by going back to that role that God has chosen for them. –Pastor Mark Driscoll, Mars Hill Church, Seattle

The anti-abortion protesters are confused—Are these new people on our team or not? They lean and shuffle so that they can read the signs more clearly. A couple even ask, “Who are you?” But the sign bearers just smile politely and decline to engage. Patients, staff, and passersby who read the words are offended. In fact, they are even more offended by the quotes than they are by the dead fetus pictures. And that is the point.

Aikido is a Japanese martial art that makes use of the attacker’s own momentum as a defensive strategy. Rather than trying to oppose force head-on, an Aikido practitioner—who may be small and weak—leverages her opponent’s own strength and energy, nudging the attacker’s move in one direction or another, or exaggerating it slightly, rendering the assault harmless.

The above scenario describing a clinic protest is an Aikido move. The abortion opponents hold up signs of fetal remains in an attempt to elicit disgust; the counter-protesters simply take that disgust and in a non-confrontational, nonviolent way, amplify and redirect it.

Why do words from the Bible and Christian authorities have Aikido potential? Because they are the driving force behind the dead fetus signs that have plagued patients and providers for two generations, and they are morally repugnant. Abortion opponents may talk about babies and medical science; they may say falsely that abortion causes cancer or induces a psychological trauma syndrome, and that contraceptives render women infertile or that birth control pills turn your blood serum green.

They may fight in court using legalese or pose as medical caregivers themselves, but behind and beneath it all lies the relentless drive of Bible belief and powerful religious traditions that lend the weight of absolute divine authority to gendered scripts.

As futurist Sara Robinson has said, in a century that included both the first automobile and the first man on the moon, the pill may well have been the most disruptive technology of them all. Every prior cultural or religious system, including Judeo-Christianity was scripted around one immutable biological fact: Women had no control over their fertility. This was the defining reality around which whole civilizations structured roles and obligations. It is why early legal codes, like that in the Bible, treated women as chattel—literally, the property of men. In cultures obsessed with patriarchal inheritance and sacred bloodlines, the only way to get around “mama’s baby, papa’s maybe” was for men to control the sexual behavior of their daughters, wives, and slaves.

One of the functions of religion is to elevate the status of cultural scripts, making them more durable, less subject to question and revision. “Why?” asks the curious or frustrated child. “Because I said so!” answers her parent, as if that settled the question. Later in life, faced with contradictions, frustrations, suffering, or self-doubt, the child (now grown) calls upon an introjected parent of divine proportions, and the answer echoes, “Because God said so!”

Many abortion protesters, though deeply religious, honestly believe that they are saving babies. They honestly believe that family planning hurts women. They have no idea they have been manipulated and are spending their days on the picket line in the service of an archaic script that served our Iron Age ancestors. Such is the power of rationalization.

Many protestors have no idea they have been manipulated and are spending their days on the picket line in the service of an archaic script that served our Iron Age ancestors.Some do know that the secular arguments against abortion are philosophically tenuous or that family planning has tremendous power to lift families out of poverty. They know that the fight really is all about theology, but they would still prefer to make their case in universal terms. “Because my God said so” has less and less weight in modern society.

Globally, secularism is on the rise thanks in part to the Internet, and the United States is experiencing an unparalleled shift toward secularism. The New Scientist magazine recently took stock of the trend lines:

A decade ago, more than three-quarters of the world’s population identified themselves as religious. Today, less than 60 per cent do, and in about a quarter of countries the nones are now a majority. … Even in the US – a deeply Christian country – the number of people expressing “no religious affiliation” has risen from 5 per cent in 1972 to 20 per cent today; among people under 30, that number is closer to a third.

In Christian-dominant cultures, the violent and contradictory passages of the Bible are becoming more known, as are the roots of Abrahamic religion in the earlier cultures of the Ancient Near East. Exposed to sunlight, ancient idols crumble, both literally and metaphorically, especially when they are held aloft by religious fanatics who are seen as judgmental and out of touch. Each of these is a trend-line that provides reproductive rights advocates with an Aikido opportunity.

Recently deceased Baptist pastor Fred Phelps was master of what I now call “The Phelps Effect,” in which a person makes his own position so repugnant that he moves public opinion in the opposite direction. Caught in the tangle of biblical literalism, Phelps quoted chapter and verse to back up his conviction that “God hates fags.” He became the face of homophobia, and he helped to make it repulsive. In doing so, he also undermined the authority of the particularly noxious scriptures he claimed as his own.

Like Phelps, most abortion opponents perceive themselves to be on a divinely appointed mission. Unlike Phelps, they may seek to downplay the biblical imperative that drives them, to deflect the debate onto topics like when life begins or fetal pain. They may use prenatal photography selectively to activate our protective instinct toward anything that looks big-eyed or remotely human. They may labor to blur the distinction between a fertilized egg and a baby or child. What they try to avoid is exposing the deep seated misogyny of their worldview. This year, the Republican Party has held trainings for national candidates on how to talk about women. Their goal is to try and avoid a repeat of the “rape Tourette’s” phenomenon that plagued the party two years ago. You can think horrible things about women, but just don’t say them.

This is where Aikido comes in.

Abortion opponents, on their own, may not go far enough to trigger the Phelps Effect. But we can. The clinic scenario that opens this article is one hypothetical example, but the opportunity is broader. I recently wrote about five religious leaders who are prone to saying awful things about women and LGBTQ people. I could have written about 50, each of whom provides ample opportunity to expose the long legacy of misogyny behind the man.

When we spotlight what drives the anti-choice movement, we expose a set of archaic imperatives that demand female submission and tell young women they will be saved though childbearing. And ordinary Americans don’t like what they see.

De-converting from Christianity was not easy. It is one of the most difficult things one can do after being a follower for almost ten years. I was a Christian for the better part of ten years, even after the events that destroyed my trust in Christianity my faith remained by the tiniest thread for a long time. In many cases, the person de-converting may have been a follower for a lot longer than ten years. The process starts due to some crisis of faith, at which point the doubt begins to set in, you can try to ignore it but eventually it may become as annoying as an itch you just cannot reach, or a warning beep on your computer that tries to tell you something is wrong and needs to be addressed. If you ignore it it won't go away, if you give it your attention then it grows. At this point, those experiencing a particularly serious crisis of faith will often find themselves beginning the process of de-converting from Christianity. For a long time I thought I was going crazy, the process of leaving the fold did a number on my sanity and was not pleasant. I have been visiting this site on and off for the last year and was both encouraged and moved by the stories I have read. It was a relief to know that there have been others who have gone through the same experience and I offer my thanks to those who have shared those experiences.

De-conversion has much in common with the stages of grief. First, you deny it to yourself and others unwilling to reconcile the fact that you could be losing your faith in God. Some people will try extremely hard to ignore the possibility that they are losing their faith. Other people may find themselves assured that doubt is common among Christians and is nothing to worry about. Then you get angry, angry at the possibility that all you have been told by your pastors and other church leaders was a lie, you do not know whom to trust, and this may cause some personal investigation into the subject. Sometimes you even get angry with yourself for being doubtful and angry with your former fellow brethren, even those who have not done you any wrong. Eventually, you grieve the loss.

For many Christians, the idea that anyone could lose faith and God would allow this to happen can be a terrifying one.Once your fellow brethren recognise your loss of faith, they may offer little help. This is not as much an issue of them being rude as it is that they see your loss of faith as a spiritual sickness. If they think they cannot cure it they often quietly slip away, as though fearing that this sickness is contagious. For many Christians, the idea that anyone could lose faith and God would allow this to happen can be a terrifying one. It is terrifying because it gives the most horrible impression that to God, even if you are a Christian you are expendable. In other words, to God you are a tool, an instrument of his will, which can be discarded without consequence. For other Christians, the idea of losing faith is unfathomable because they cannot compute why someone would do this as it goes against their perception of the world and the way they have been taught quite often from a young age. The idea that someone would not want a relationship with the loving, personal deity that they have been raised to believe in is mind-boggling. I remember thinking exactly that when I was a Christian. Christians quickly form a rationale, usually something about the de-converting person being evil or a pseudo-Christian, to explain why the person would do this. For those in Christian families, and who manage to lose their faith, this can be extremely difficult.

The strong sense of community that often comes with Christianity and the knowledge that you risk losing that sense of community makes the transition when de-converting even harder. Much of Christianity’s power comes from its ability to appeal to our deepest emotions touching them when we are most vulnerable and by seemingly providing a voice of certainty in an uncertain world. Letting go is not easy nor is the fear of losing a part of yourself, and your identity, the fear of this can be overwhelming. Eventually, the often-long transition through to acceptance comes.

For over 20 years I never once doubted the existence of the Christian god. I may have doubted specifics of his nature, I may have doubted interpretations of his actions by others, but I never doubted the existence of my chosen deity.

Church

My Christian credentials ran long. I accepted Jesus Christ as my personal savior at the age of 3 or 4 (plus several re-dedications), I went on 4 mission trips in high school, received the highest award possible from AWANA, sang with the praise team, attended Sunday school, and even taught an apologetics class. I was homeschooled from kindergarten to 12th grade and participated in a weekly Christian home school collective. My belief permeated every single facet of my life.

The denominational background I had was more diverse than some experience--ranging from the charismatic Vineyard movement (Assemblies of God/Pentecostal influenced), to the comparatively stodgy Reformed Church of America (no robes or regular liturgy, but we did at least keep the Doxology in the same place every week). Sprinkled into the mix was a Bible church (similar to the Baptist church in theology), and pure-bred Baptist (the theology that most closely matched my views overall).

It was an altogether eclectic mix--the "here and now miracles" of the charismatic churches, the strong declaratives of the Bible and Baptist churches, and the history and tradition of the Reformation.

State

Outside the church, I found common cause with the culture warriors. I was riveted to the radio during Focus on the Family broadcasts (particularly the quasi-political ones), I devoured newsletters from the Home School Legal Defense Association detailing accounts of how the government was persecuting homeschoolers, I participated in political campaigns for local and national god-fearing GOP leaders.

I remember being sorely disappointed when Bob Dole lost in 1996 (I was 9 years at the time) and crestfallen again when the impeachment against Bill Clinton failed. 9/11 happened and Jerry Falwell blamed the pagans, abortionists, gay, lesbians and the ACLU. I agreed.

I had been expecting God’s judgment on our sinful nation for some time. By age 13 I was listening to right-wing talk radio and during the 2004 election I would listen almost every waking hour of the day. Limbaugh, Hannity, Savage, Boortz, Beck, Ingraham. The same talking points from sun-up to sun-down, and I loved every minute of it.

College

I joined the Air Force ROTC and went to a small Christian college in Indiana. I was immediately confronted with a pacifist professor of the Mennonite tradition who didn't like George W. Bush--I transferred out of their class immediately.

All students were required to sign a statement of faith and submit to the following rules:

not to even be "in the presence" of alcohol (the professor that ordered a beer when he took us out to lunch raised my eyebrows)

no gambling (my best friend from there is now a casino dealer)

no profane language at any time (most frequently broken by the pre-seminary people I lived with)

no gluttony (so much for the freshman 15, right?)

no premarital sex ( though you could be forgiven for this if you voluntarily “disclosed your sin” to campus staff, vowed to remain abstinent and resigned from any sports team or student office you held)

no being gay (though I know of one gay, one lesbian and one transgender individual from my freshman class)

In a surprisingly liberal move, we were allowed to attend off-campus dances (being cautioned to not taint our witness or the reputation of the college), but of course we still couldn't be in the presence of alcohol.
These rules applied from matriculation to graduation--summers included.

At one point, the college responded to the rumored visit of SoulForce's EqualityRide (a Christian group advocating against anti-gay policies at Christian colleges) by devoting an entire chapel period to instruct us not to talk to them if they showed up and saying that college administrators would call the police to have them removed. Fortunately, they never showed up while I was there.

Bible Belt and a Burnt Offering

After graduation, I moved to the promised land of the Bible Belt. Conservative values reigned supreme, Republican politics dominated and conservative Christianity was part of the price of admission to the social network.

I attended another Bible Church where the messages were familiar and reassuring. The culture warrior quotient was a little lower than other churches, and I was mildly scandalized that a few people in the church drank socially, but they still preached the fundamental principles I grew up with—and I settled in to the routine of worship team and small group fellowship.

It was in one of these small groups that we began to read the entire Bible. (Mind you, I had done this 2 or 3 times already). We made it through Genesis (Young Earth Creationism…check). We made it through Exodus (bizarre and cruel Old Testament Law…no problem). We made it through the “begats.” We made it through Joshua (Put everything that breathes to the sword…okey dokey).

29 Then the Spirit of the LORD came on Jephthah. He crossed Gilead and Manasseh, passed through Mizpah of Gilead, and from there he advanced against the Ammonites. 30 And Jephthah made a vow to the LORD: “If you give the Ammonites into my hands, 31 whatever comes out of the door of my house to meet me when I return in triumph from the Ammonites will be the LORD’s, and I will sacrifice it as a burnt offering.” 32 Then Jephthah went over to fight the Ammonites, and the LORD gave them into his hands. 33 He devastated twenty towns from Aroer to the vicinity of Minnith, as far as Abel Keramim. Thus Israel subdued Ammon. 34 When Jephthah returned to his home in Mizpah, who should come out to meet him but his daughter, dancing to the sound of timbrels! She was an only child. Except for her he had neither son nor daughter. 35 When he saw her, he tore his clothes and cried, “Oh no, my daughter! You have brought me down and I am devastated. I have made a vow to the LORD that I cannot break.” 36 “My father,” she replied, “you have given your word to the LORD. Do to me just as you promised, now that the LORD has avenged you of your enemies, the Ammonites. 37 But grant me this one request,” she said. “Give me two months to roam the hills and weep with my friends, because I will never marry.” 38 “You may go,” he said. And he let her go for two months. She and her friends went into the hills and wept because she would never marry. 39 After the two months, she returned to her father, and he did to her as he had vowed. And she was a virgin. From this comes the Israelite tradition 40 that each year the young women of Israel go out for four days to commemorate the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite.

If I was to take this story at face value, I would have to face the fact that this man killed his daughter because of a vow made to the LORD. Yet that seemed like one of the most insane abrogations of justice and morality that I can imagine. Jephthah makes an irresponsible oath, his daughter dies as a result, and God either approves or does nothing to stop it.

Fortunately, there were others that were similarly concerned. I scoured the internet and came up with the possibility that having his daughter “sacrificed as a burnt offering” really meant that she was “dedicated to the LORD” and not allowed to marry (thus, the mourning of her virginity). Despite the contemptible patriarchy, this option at least seemed more palatable.

I proposed this alternate explanation to several people and was immediately shot down.

“ ‘…and He did to her as he had vowed’, he vowed to offer her as a burnt offering. He shouldn’t have done so, but he couldn’t break his oath to God,” they said.

I wanted to be intelligent in my faith and believe the best about my God. The values I believed that Christian teaching had instilled in me were very much at odds with the values I was finding in the Bible.

This dilemma rekindled my interest in apologetics. I scoured commentaries, I re-read Lee Strobel and Josh McDowell. I found online resources from Christian Apologetics Resource Ministries (CARM). I inhaled the rarefied and seemingly lofty logic of C.S. Lewis. I tried different versions of the Bible. I begged God for discernment and wisdom to understand and validate my faith.

And I read.

And I prayed.

One day, searching for more information on Lee Strobel’s “The Case for Christ,” I came across a site that reviewed the totality of his book, point-by-point, from a skeptical perspective. Being well-versed in apologetics, I thought it would be interesting to see how quickly this review would fall apart under my scrutiny.

Except it didn’t.

My lengthy interest in apologetics had an Achilles heel. I had never exposed myself to the actual counter-arguments of those who debated apologists. I had fallen for the “straw man” set up by apologists when preaching to the choir. I began to compare the debates of apologists and skeptics side by side.

I watched the debate tactics of William Lane Craig and others on the apologist side. I noticed that, in all their debate skill and talented rhetoric, they never answered the most pertinent questions in a convincing or satisfactory way. Skeptics often asked questions that were answered by religious explanations and justifications. I had always known the definition of circular logic (“The Bible is true because the Bible says the Bible is true”), but I began to wonder—how would this convince someone who did not already believe in the Bible?

Islam has many prophecies they claim are fulfilled and 72 virgins available to martyrs, Hinduism speaks confidently of the supernatural abilities of its pantheon, some forms of Judaism reject literal interpretations of Old Testament stories of Creation, the Flood, and the Exodus. (All forms of Judaism reject either the fulfillment of Christianity’s “Messianic prophecies” or claim entirely different verses to prophecy their awaited Messiah).

Mormonism takes Christianity and adds golden tablets found in upstate New York, names the location of the Garden of Eden (Jackson County, MO), introduces three levels of heaven, gives God’s home address (the planet Kolob), and provides “temple garmets” derisively called “magic underwear” to be worn under clothing. (This doesn’t even include teachings they now disown, such as polygamy and the idea the dark-skinned people can be turned lighter/whiter if they would just lead better lives).

Of course all of those claims seemed ridiculous to me. I knew that the world was spoken into existence less than 10,000 years ago by Yahweh( who formed humans from dust and a rib bone) and (thanks to a walking, talking snake) these humans ate forbidden fruit of knowledge (which caused all mankind to be sinful, requiring their death and damnation), but through the loving and gracious execution of God’s Perfect Son Jesus on a cross in Bronze Age Palestine that mankind’s sinful nature could be forgiven unless one rejected Jesus in which case they would sadly burn forever in Hell.

How could I be wrong? I had a holy book and millions of people who agreed with me. But how could I get those who didn’t already accept these truths to believe? What could I say to convince them? Even more unsettling, what could I say to convince myself?

I continued to steep myself in the arguments of Christianity and Theism, but each time I found the perfect argument to convince the unbeliever, I sought out the actual responses of the skeptics. Each time, the issue was (at best) reduced to a murky, unprovable point. Generic theistic arguments (Cosmological, Teleological, Ontological) also lacked the specific evidence I desired to find of Christianity, and could be easily applied to any monotheistic religion (perhaps even adapted to polytheism).

My prayer intensified. This had to make sense. There had to be an explanation. There had to be a God and it had to be the Christian one, even if it didn’t make any sense. I tried to pare my beliefs down to a minimalist approach. I asked myself “what are the essentials?” and sought to find evidence to shore up some basic tenants of God’s existence, man’s sin, Jesus’ redemptive sacrifice and an afterlife. Each argument I found presented arguments and ideas, facts and philosophy, and then eventually got to the point where you had to “take it on faith.” I had done that before, and each time I had been disappointed.

I wondered if I was still covered by the celestial fire insurance. I pleaded with God every night to just tell me what was true so I could live it and stop this striving to understand. I begged forgiveness for my doubt and hoped that I would not die in my sleep to wake up in Hell.

In January of 2013 I admitted the truth to myself. I didn’t believe. I wanted to believe, I had no desire to rock the boat, I didn’t want to worry or hurt friends and family, and I didn’t want to lose the social structure I lived in.

I wondered how I could make moral choices if I didn’t have a religion to get them from and how I could find joy and meaning if this was the only life I had. I wondered if I would lose relationships with friends and family. I didn’t know that I knew a single other person who didn’t believe.

I continued to go to the weekly small group meetings (the church we attended disbanded in early 2012), but I lived in fear that someone would notice that I was not singing, not praying, not joining in the devotional conversation. I didn’t feel it was anything I could bring up in the group. I didn’t want the drama or the controversy of the concern. I didn’t want to walk down the entire road of apologetics and counter –apologetics all over again and cause increasing frustration when they failed to convince me. I didn’t want my wife to have to answer for my absence or my disbelief. Fortunately, the group folded a few months later and I avoided that controversy.

The Here and Now

Life has changed in many ways over the past year and half—largely for the better. Though my social network has not been completely rebuilt, I have found other skeptics and more liberal Christians who can appreciate the value of secular government and stand in opposition to heavy-handed attempts to advance Christian privilege in local and state government.

I find great joy in being able to analyze the harms and benefits of my actions and the actions of others—without having to reconcile or cherry pick justifications from the best moral pronouncements of Israelites of 2-3 millennia ago.

I remain fascinated by the history and teachings of religion, but also fascinated by the findings of science (which I no longer have to compare to the Bible before figuring out if I’m allowed to believe it or not).

I no longer view myself is a broken human being worthy of eternal torture for disbelief in a deity. I worry as much about Yahweh’s Hell as I worry about Allah’s Hell or the monkey god Hanuman kicking my butt for writing imperfect sentences (offending his nature as the “perfect grammarian”).

I don’t have to convince myself of the unbelievable in order to be faithful. I can question anything without fear and live comfortably with things yet unknown without claiming I have special knowledge.

While the cynical streak runs strong in me, my optimism is buoyed by evidence that humankind has climbed down from the trees, stood on our two feet and conquered the world in a microcosmic amount of time. While we posses destructive tendencies (and, thanks to nuclear weapons, the ability to wipe ourselves out), I see the world as generally getting better with time. There are problems to deal with, which we may or may not be able to solve, but we’ve come a long ways since Zeus threw lightning bolts from heaven. The ending to the story (unlike the book of Revelation) has not yet been written, and we are not ants in a cosmic experiment that is winding down towards Judgment Day.

Statistics estimate my brain activity will cease in another 50 or 60 years and my body will stop functioning. Whether that day is today or a hundred years away, I know I will never do everything I’d like to do. It would be nice to fall asleep at a ripe old age and awaken in a new body with a chance to do it all over again, but I see no evidence that this is the case. I don’t fear death (though I’m not crazy about dying), and though I feel regret that I won’t be able to continue experiencing life until I’ve had my fill, I’ll side with Mark Twain who said “I’ve been dead for thousands of years before I was born and never suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.” Though my life is finite, the sun will go out and the universe itself is slowly winding down to heat death, even my cynical side cannot suppress the wonder I get from existing right now. To be alive an experiencing the world with the health, wealth and technology not possible before this fleeting moment of history is humbling and exhilarating. For me, making my own meaning during my time on the planet enhances this experience far more than having a cosmic scorekeeper who I exist to serve. The meaning I find is to maximize happiness for myself and others, to get the most out of every day I have, and to act in accordance with the best moral precepts I can determine, without promise of reward or threat of punishment.

As an agnostic I have the freedom to say “I don’t know,” as an atheist (by some definitions), I freely admit the truth that I currently do not believe in any gods (though I do not claim to have dis-proven any possibility of them existing), as a humanist, I’m awfully partial to my own species and would like maximize their experience on Earth.

As myself, I’m just an average person living in a remarkable time that likes people and wants to live a great life.

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